Tag Archives: poetry for sale

Ten Years After

February 19, 2021Art, Crime Fiction, Fiction, Limited Editions, Linoleum Prints, Modern Poetry, Non-fiction, Poetry, WesternBamboo Leaf Studio, Chinese poetry, crime fiction, detective, Dime Pulp, Exile In Paradise, fiction, Gail King, haikai no renga, hard-boiled, independent publishers, indie publishers, Japanese Poetry, Japanese style binding, limited editions, Lincoln County, literature, Maureen Owen, Michael Sowl, neo-pulp fiction, New Mexico, new titles, Northern California, Nualláin House, Outlaws, Parole, Pat Garrett, Pat Nolan, poetry for sale, rare editions, renga, Selected Poems, Southwest History, tanka, the last resort, The New Black Bart Poetry Society, westernsNuallain House, Publishers

2021 marks ten years since Nualláin House, Publishers, began print on demand publishing of “literature as reading entertainment” utilizing readily available digital technology and desktop design options, essentially a case of authors seizing the means of production. Over that time Nualláin House has published two genre novels (crime fiction and western), an anthology of Japanese linked verse, and six selections of poetry. Because technology changes the way one does business, Nualláin House has slowly shifted emphasis away from the production of bound volumes of poetry and fiction to the wider readership access provided by the internet. Digital media in the form of blogs and websites provide an entry for the independent artist and writer to launch shoestring operations that do not demand much more than time, determination, and a little imagination to produce and promote their work. After a decade of slogging up the steep cyber learning curve, Nualláin House, Publishers, a publishing project that focused on printed media, has had to widen its scope of what can be accomplished in the production and promotion of literary arts. To that end, along with a new easier to read WordPress theme, Nualláin House has incorporated two fresh projects available through the site’s menu bar to reflect its expanded emphasis: Affiliated Sites and Bamboo Leaf Studio. As before, synopses and approbation of previously published titles can also be accessed from the menu bar as can contact information and ordering print editions

Affiliated Sites

The New Black Bart Poetry Society blog, Parole, was launched in 2012 and was originally conceived as a calendar and events reminder for the poetry society. As the successor to Life of Crime, a more scurrilous Society rag from the 80s, Parole continues the focus on poetry, poets, and the poetry scene. It has a worldwide readership which has grown from a couple of hundred readers a month to thousands who now enjoy its unique perspectives on modern poetry.

Ode To Sunset, A Year In The Life Of American Genius, a fiction by Pat Nolan, was in the works several years before Nualláin House, Publishers, came into being. As work on Ode To Sunset was occurring in parallel, the publishing tools available through the internet offered the opportunity to take a creative leap into the online publishing of the manuscript as a serial novel. At over 600 manuscript pages, the challenge then became one of presentation over a sustained period of time. The novel was posted over two years, 2014-2016, with yearly updates and progress reports since then.

Joining these two affiliated sites is Dime Pulp, A Serial Fiction Magazine. Nualláin House’s original concept of publishing literature as reading entertainment is being revisited with a new undertaking in the form of a serial fiction magazine posting original crime fiction on a monthly schedule. Dime Pulp has already published its first issues featuring two original novels in serialization as well as short stories with more original genre fiction in the queue.

For the curious wishing to access the aforementioned sites, click on Affiliated Sites here or on the menu bar and follow the links

Bamboo Leaf Studio

Bamboo Leaf Studio is an independent art enterprise by poet Pat Nolan featuring his limited edition handmade books, linoleum prints, and studio based literary ephemera. The studio page provides links to four gallery pages of representative work: Faux Koans, Smoking Poets, Women Poet Postcards, and Handmade Books & Surimono. Click on Bamboo Leaf Studio here or on the menu bar to access the links to the galleries below the brief introduction.

What’s Next?

The events of the past year have presented an opportunity to reassess the expectations for Nualláin House as a publishing arts venture. Although the emphasis on hard copy production is no longer in the forefront, Nualláin House, Publishers, is reviewing its catalog and considering at least one more print on demand edition of creative non-fiction. As well, work is in progress to bring a new serial novel online, in addition to the ones featured in Dime Pulp. Poetry will continue to be a focus but as online chapbooks downloadable in pdf or ebook formats. Bamboo Leaf Studio with new Smoking Poets prints and assorted literary art ephemera continues to be a crucible of creativity in its unique synthesis of art and literature. With the exception of the books, prints, and some ephemera, all of these literary products are available without charge to the interested reader. Many thanks to those who have faithfully followed Nualláin House, Publishers, over the years. There’s always something new on the creative horizon.

WHITE HOT Summer Deals

June 9, 2018Crime Fiction, Fiction, Modern Poetry, Non-fiction, Poetry, WesternAndrei Codrescu, Chinese poetry, crime fiction, Eric Johnson, Exile In Paradise, fiction, Gail King, haikai no renga, hard-boiled, Hello Life, independent publishers, indie publishers, Japanese Poetry, Keith Abbott, Las Cruces, Lincoln County, literature, Maureen Owen, neo-pulp fiction, New Mexico, new titles, Northern California, Nualláin House, On The Road To Las Cruces, Outlaws, Pat Garrett, Pat Nolan, poetry for sale, renga, Selected Poems, So Much, Southwest History, Summer Deals, the last resort, westerns, Your Name HereNuallain House, Publishers

Buy one Nualláin House Title at Retail Price & Take 40% off Additional Titles
at the Time of Your Purchase (a saving of over $6 per additional title).
As an added BONUS receive FREE Shipping
with the purchase of two or more Nualláin House titles.
Poetry titles retail for $16 each. See How To Order for details.

So Much, Selected Poem, 1969-1989
“Descriptions of nature so translucent we can only marvel how he weaves us into them, onward, around that eternal share of misfortune, bitter realization, and expectations gone wrong. This is Nolan’s secret power. He engages us in magical transformation and will not let us look away.”
—Maureen Owen, author of Erosion’s Pull and Edges of Water

Exile In Paradise
“Reading these poems, I feel like I’m walking down a village lane somewhere in China, beyond the reach of the emperor’s minions, and every door I walk by, someone invites me in for a cup of wine. At this rate, I don’t think I’ll ever make it out of here, and why should I?”
—Bill Porter (Red Pine), translator, author of Finding Them Gone: Visiting China’s Poets from the Past

Poetry For Sale
“Poetry For Sale is a fantastic collection. Anyone interested in the interaction between Japanese and English poetry needs this book. And anyone interested in renga should definitely get it. It is an immensely pleasing collection: entertaining, surprising, sometimes sharp and witty, sometimes introspective, sometimes descriptive, the renga unfold with great skill and elegance.”
—Jim Wilson, author of Microcosmos, The Art Of The Solo Renga (Sebastopol, 2014)

Your Name Here
“The poems glow with insight and wit as they simply monitor the flow of a mind steeped in Chinese poetry, bebop, the Russian River, the beats, the birds, Heraclitus. . . . [Nolan] in his own words, is an alphabet male. And despite the breadth of his learning and thought, is always just talking from right here. It’s a hell of a book.”
—Eric Johnson, poet and master printer at Iota Press

Hello Life
“Reading Gail King has always been one of my great poetry pleasures. Her inimitable voice narrates the world with humor and tenderness, a world of beauty and occasional sorrow. Her work has healing effects.”
—Andrei Codrescu, NPR commentator and author of So Recently Rent A World

The Last Resort
“Pat Nolan’s The Last Resort puts his gun in the right hands–a woman’s–with authority and harmful intent. Get ready to hit the deck!”
—Barry Gifford, author of Imagining Paradise and Wild At Heart

On The Road To Las Cruces
“On the Road to Las Cruces takes us on a twilight journey through frontier history. Nolan’s adroit and stylish prose intertwines death, betrayal, greed and conspiracy as each claims its victims.”
—Keith Abbott, author of Downstream From Trout Fishing In America

Holiday Bargains

December 5, 2017Art, Crime Fiction, Fiction, Linoleum Prints, Non-fiction, Poetry, WesternBamboo Leaf Studio, Chinese poetry, crime fiction, detective, Faux Koans, fiction, Gail King, haikai no renga, hard-boiled, independent publishers, indie publishers, Japanese Poetry, Las Cruces, limited editions, Lincoln County, literature, neo-pulp fiction, New Mexico, new titles, Northern California, Nualláin House, Outlaws, Pat Garrett, Pat Nolan, poetry for sale, renga, Selected Poems, Smoking Poet, Southwest History, the last resort, westernsNuallain House, Publishers

Happy 2018

Now Available from

Nualláin House, Publishers

Purchase two or more titles
and get free shipping
anywhere in the US
(see How To Order for details)

Also available through our partnership with
Bamboo Leaf Studio
Linoleum Block Prints
from the Smoking Poets series

and the Faux Koan series by Pat Nolan

Order two or more prints
get free shipping
and receive a bonus broadside of
the limited edition
Dylan Thomas print accompanied by Pat Nolan’s
Advice To A Young Poet
Free!!

Seasonal Specials from Nualláin House

November 29, 2015Crime Fiction, Fiction, Non-fiction, Poetry, WesternBasho, crime fiction, detective, Earl Miner, fiction, Gail King, haikai no renga, haiku, hard-boiled, independent publishers, indie publishers, Japanese Poetry, Keith Abbott, Las Cruces, Lincoln County, literature, Maureen Owen, Michael Sowl, neo-pulp fiction, New Mexico, Northern California, Nualláin House, Outlaws, Pat Garrett, Pat Nolan, poetry for sale, renga, Selected Poems, Southwest History, the last resort, westernsNuallain House, Publishers

20% Off on All Titles & Free Shipping*
(offer good thru 12/31/15)

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Get all five Nualláin House titles for just $60!!
Save over $20!!!

*(free shipping in US only)

Send check or money order
(made payable to ‘Pat Nolan’)
for the listed Sale price to

Nualláin House, Publishers
Box 798 Monte Rio, CA 95462.

ON THE ROAD TO LAS CRUCES; Being A Novel Account of The Last Day In The Life of A Legendary Western Lawman
by Pat Nolan

Pat Nolan’s first published novel, On The Road To Last Cruces; Being A Novel Account of The Last Day In The Life of A Legendary Western Lawman is the story of youthful bravado and an old man’s regret, and as much a dusty tale of buffalo hunts and shoot-outs as a politically driven “whodunit.” November 2011 ~ 154 pages

THE LAST RESORT
A Lee Malone Adventure
by Pat Nolan

Pat Nolan has written a fast paced, tongue-in-cheek, pun filled comedy of errors, misunderstandings, and faux intuition in the mode of a 1930’s pulp thriller. Instead of the typical splinter-jawed, broken nosed, tobacco breathed tough guy hero, Nolan upends the stereotype by introducing a gorgeous internationally famous former fashion model whose super power is her beauty.
August 2012~ 212 pages

HELLO LIFE
Poems by Gail King

The poems of Hello Life achieve their freshness in the particularity of experience. The poet surrenders herself to the moment and tenders that subtle cognition as a delighted welcome to life. The ease of her expression in dealing with the everyday communicates an uncommon wisdom. The poems present, through playful understatement and sly humor, the immediacy of spontaneous impressions.
December 2013 ~ 64 pages

Your Name Here
New Poems
by Pat Nolan

The poems in Your Name Here revolve around that quantum axis with seemingly random discontinuities that do not pin down meaning but are left to mean themselves. Nolan’s poetry enacts a sub-vocal monologue that is like the murmur of cosmic background radiation, noticeable only in its cessation or as pauses when the mind registers the sum of discrete moments in an instant. November 2014 ~ 80 pages

Poetry For Sale
Haikai no Renga (Linked Poetry)

Introduction by Pat Nolan
The eleven haikai no renga included in Poetry For Sale were written over period of nearly thirty years by Pat Nolan and his renku collaborators, Keith Kumasen Abbott, Sandy Berrigan, Gloria Frym, Steven Lavoie, Joen Eshima Moore, Maureen Owen, Michael Sowl, and John Veglia. In these pages haikai no renga is synthesized as a brief, highly suggestive, well spoken, maddeningly ambiguous, read-between-the-lines kind of poetry tuned to a common understanding. October 2015 ~ 152 pages

Poetry For Sale Now Available!

September 17, 2015Non-fiction, PoetryBasho, Buson, Earl Miner, Gloria Frym, haikai no renga, haiku, independent publishers, indie publishers, Jack Kerouac, Japanese Poetry, Joen Eshima Moore, John Veglia, Keith Abbott, Kikaku, Linked Poetry, literature, Maureen Owen, Michael Sowl, new titles, Northern California, Nualláin House, Pat Nolan, poetry for sale, renga, Sandy Berrigan, Steven Lavoie, tankaNuallain House, Publishers

NOW AVAILABLE!!

from Nualláin House, Publishers

OCTOBER 2015
Order Now & Get Free Shipping!
(Sorry, Free Shipping Available
To North American Destinations Only)
Offer Good Through October 15, 2015

Poetry For Sale

Haikai No Renga (linked poetry)
Introduction by Pat Nolan
Haikai no Renga with
Keith Kumasen Abbott,
Sandy Berrigan, Gloria Frym,
Steven Lavoie, Joen Eshima Moore,
Maureen Owen, Michael Sowl,
and John Veglia.

The eleven haikai no renga included in Poetry For Sale were written over period of nearly thirty years by Pat Nolan and his renku collaborators, Keith Kumasen Abbott, Sandy Berrigan, Gloria Frym, Steven Lavoie, Joen Eshima Moore, Maureen Owen, Michael Sowl, and John Veglia. This collection of linked poetry presents a fascinating excursion in comparative literature by a cross-section of exceptional, widely-published American poets. What these poets bring to the collaborative linking of stanzas is a visceral sense of the poetic that transcends two disparate languages and the gap of centuries. In these pages haikai no renga is synthesized as a brief, highly suggestive, well spoken, maddeningly ambiguous, read-between-the-lines kind of poetry tuned to a common understanding.

October 2015 ~ 152 pages ~ $16 ~ paper ~ ISBN978-0-9840310-4-7

click on the How To Order tab for more information

from HARDLY STRICTLY HAIKAI
—An Introduction—

Haikai no Renga is collaborative poetry of Japanese origin normally written by two or more poets linking stanzas of 17 syllables and 14 syllables according to specific rules governing the relationship between stanzas. Haikai collaboration can be as complex as chess, as multi-dimensional as go, and as fast-paced and entertaining as dominoes. It is as much about the interaction of the poets as it is about what gets written. The forward progress of its improvisation is akin to that of a tight jazz combo. Haikai composition has also been compared to montage in experimental film where the discontinuity of images and vectors achieves an integral non-narrative expression.

Haikai no renga is known variously as renga, haikai, renku, and linked poetry. Generally the term renga is applied to an older, more traditional style of linking poetry practiced by the aristocracy and the upper echelon of medieval Japanese society. Haikai no renga means “non-standard renga” though it has often been translated as “mongrel” or “dog renga” which places it in the literary hierarchy as common entertainment.

In the introduction to her seminal study of Matsuo Basho’s haikai no renga, Monkey’s Raincoat (Grossinger/Mushinsha, 1973), Dr. Maeda Cana offers a further explication of the word haikai. “The main characteristics of the haikai are partly discernible in the kanji or Chinese characters which make up the words haikai and renku: hai denotes fun, play, humor, and also actor or actress, and kai friendly exchange of words; ren represents a number of carriages passing along a road one after another and has the meaning of continuing to completion while ku is expressive of the rhythmic changes in speech and denotes end or stop.”

Renku is a literary game of high seriousness valuing cooperation and rewarding intelligence as well as intuition. A poet’s erudition and sense of language are called upon to clear paths and build bridges that will meander through the landscape of a literary garden. Its cooperative result, a balance of unpredictable language gestures as insubstantial as smoke but possessed of a palpable humanity, is what is important. The echo of the response, its relationship to the previous stanza, and how it extends its meaning, poignantly or allusively, is the esthetic ground for this kind of poetry. The linking process, in renga, and in haikai, allows a sequence whose subtle oscillation of playfulness and gravity walk the tightrope of language’s built-in ambiguities.

“Generally speaking, haikai is steeped in the wit and banter” as Dr. Cana explains, and “it has a brilliance that shocks. Such brilliance is continual and amazes. . .at every turn.” Poets are under pressure to produce the unpredictable so that the possibilities of cleverness are continually exploited at a tempo that is swift and witty. The haikai poets of old delighted in word play, literary allusions, double entendres as well as displays of authentic sensibility. The completed renku is as much a certificate of cooperation as it is a multi-page poem and a sequence of short poems. Its literary value is in its effervescent spontaneity and transitory nature, a quality much appreciated by the Japanese.

Poetry For Sale—Free Shipping!

August 25, 2015Non-fiction, PoetryBasho, Buson, Earl Miner, Gloria Frym, haikai no renga, haiku, independent publishers, indie publishers, Jack Kerouac, Japanese Poetry, Joen Eshima Moore, John Veglia, Keith Abbott, Kikaku, Linked Poetry, literature, Maureen Owen, Michael Sowl, Northern California, Nualláin House, Pat Nolan, poetry for sale, renga, Sandy Berrigan, Steven LavoieNuallain House, Publishers

From Nualláin House, Publishers
OCTOBER 2015
Order Now & Get Free Shipping!
(Offer Good Through October 15^th)

Haikai no Renga also known as renku is a literary game of high seriousness valuing cooperation and rewarding intelligence as well as intuition. A poet’s erudition and sense of language are called upon to clear paths and build bridges that will meander through the landscape of a literary garden. Its cooperative result, a balance of unpredictable language gestures as insubstantial as smoke but possessed of a palpable humanity, is what is important. The echo of the response, its relationship to previous stanza, and how it extends its meaning, poignantly or allusively, is the esthetic ground for this kind of poetry. The linking process, in renga, and in haikai, allows a sequence whose subtle oscillation of playfulness and gravity walk the tightrope of language’s built-in ambiguities.

The eleven haikai no renga included in Poetry For Sale were written over period of nearly thirty years by Pat Nolan and his renku collaborators, Keith Kumasen Abbott, Sandy Berrigan, Gloria Frym, Steven Lavoie, Joen Eshima Moore, Maureen Owen, Michael Sowl, and John Veglia. This collection of linked poetry presents a fascinating excursion in comparative literature by a cross-section of exceptional, widely-published American poets. What these poets bring to the collaborative linking of stanzas is a visceral sense of the poetic that transcends two disparate languages and the gap of centuries. In these pages haikai no renga is synthesized as a brief, highly suggestive, well spoken, maddeningly ambiguous, read-between-the-lines kind of poetry tuned to a common understanding.

October 2015 ~ 152 pages ~ $16 ~ paper ~ ISBN978-0-9840310-4-7
go to How To Order page for more information

Poetry For Sale, Fall of 2015

July 17, 2015PoetryGloria Frym, haikai no renga, haiku, independent publishers, indie publishers, Japanese Poetry, Joen Eshima Moore, Keith Abbott, Linked Poetry, literature, Maureen Owen, Michael Sowl, Nualláin House, Pat Nolan, poetry for sale, renga, renku, Sandy Berrigan, Steven LavoieNuallain House, Publishers

Coming Soon From

Nualláin House, Publishers

Fall of 2015

Poetry For Sale

Haikai no Renga
(Linked Poetry)
Introduction by
Pat Nolan
Haikai no Renga with
Keith Kumasen Abbott,
Sandy Berrigan, Gloria Frym,
Steven Lavoie, Joen Eshima Moore,
Maureen Owen, Michael Sowl,
and John Veglia

From HARDLY STRICTLY HAIKAI

—An Introduction—

Renku is a literary game of high seriousness valuing cooperation and rewarding intelligence as well as intuition. A poet’s erudition and sense of language are called upon to clear paths and build bridges that will meander through the landscape of a literary garden. Its cooperative result, a balance of unpredictable language gestures as insubstantial as smoke but possessed of a palpable humanity, is what is important. The echo of the response, its relationship to previous stanza, and how it extends its meaning, poignantly or allusively, is the esthetic ground for this kind of poetry. The linking process, in renga, and in haikai, allows a sequence whose subtle oscillation of playfulness and gravity walk the tightrope of language’s built-in ambiguities.

The eleven haikai no renga included in Poetry For Sale were written over period of nearly thirty years by Pat Nolan and his renku collaborators, Keith Kumasen Abbott, Sandy Berrigan, Gloria Frym, Steven Lavoie, Joen Eshima Moore, Maureen Owen, Michael Sowl, and John Veglia. This collection of linked poetry presents a fascinating excursion in comparative literature by a cross-section of exceptional, widely-published American poets. What these poets bring to the collaborative linking of stanzas is a visceral sense of the poetic that transcends two disparate languages and the gap of centuries. In these pages haikai no renga is synthesized as a brief, highly suggestive, well spoken, maddeningly ambiguous, read-between-the-lines kind of poetry tuned to a common understanding.

Pre-orders now being accepted.
Place your dibs at
nuallainhousepublishers.gmail.com

Limited Edition: All Ears

February 4, 2014Limited Editions, PoetryAll Ears, Earl Miner, haikai no renga, Haruo Shirane, Hiroaki Sato, independent publishers, indie publishers, Japanese Poetry, Japanese style binding, Keith Abbott, limited editions, literature, Maureen Owen, Michael Sowl, Nualláin House, Pat Nolan, poetry for sale, Random Rocks, rare editions, renga, Saints of Hysteria, soft skull pressNuallain House, Publishers

All Ears

haikai no renga by Keith Kumasen Abbott, Pat Nolan, Maureen Owen & Michael Sowl

All Ears, a haikai no renga or linked verse, was the first of the collaborations between Maureen Owen, Keith Kumasen Abbott, Michael Sowl, and Pat Nolan to be made into a limited edition handmade book and was published by Empty Head Press in 2004. Subsequently, Random Rocks and Poetry For Sale, both haikai no renga, were issued as limited edition handmade books(see Nualláin House archives for July 2013 and October 2012). All Ears was also included in the anthology Saints of Hysteria, A Half Century of Collaborative American Poetry (Soft Skull Press, 2007).

All Ears was composed through the mail over a period of a year and a half beginning in early 1992. Once the 36 stanzas (kasen) of the haikai-no-renga were completed, each poet was asked to comment on the process in general, and on their own stanzas and those of their collaborators. The arrangement of stanza follows the standard haikai form of 8 stanzas on the first sheet and 8 stanzas on the back sheet with the remaining 20 stanzas taking up the central text. Following the haikai no renga and the commentary by the poets is the sequence showing the stanza assignment as well as which poets had the moon and flower stanzas.

All Ears was bound using repurposed “sticks & strings” wallpaper sheets from a wallpaper sample book as cover stock and backed with Japanese silkscreen endpapers. Each cover was unique in itself. The pages were folded vertically with a folded leading edge as is common in Japanese books. Each book was hand sewn using a Japanese side stitch style known “tortoiseshell.” The dimensions are 4.25×10 inches (10.5×16.5 cm). Only a limited number of All Ears were produced and it is out of print.

For more on the intriguing subject of Japanese Linked Verse, see Earl Miner’s Japanese Linked Poetry (Princeton, 1979), Hiroaki Sato’s One Hundred Frogs (Weatherhill, 1983), and Haruo Shirane’s Traces Of Dreams (Stanford, 1998).

To view a PDF facsimile of All Ears, click on ALL EARS 2004

Limited Edition: Poetry For Sale

October 3, 2012Limited Editions, PoetryBasho, Earl Miner, haikai no renga, haiku, Hiroaki Sato, hokku, independent publishers, Japanese Poetry, Japanese style binding, Keith Abbott, Kikaku, limited editions, linked verse, Maureen Owen, Michael Sowl, Pat Nolan, poetry for sale, renga, The Miner School of Haikai PoetsNuallain House, Publishers

Poetry For Sale

Haikai No Renga

By Keith Kumasen Abbott and Pat Nolan

Poetry For Sale is a limited edition haikai no renga (linked verse) published by Mountain Forest River Editions in 2008. The size of the edition was linked to the number of stanzas in a kasen, a standard renga length employed by Basho and his disciples, and in the memorializing of the 36 immortal poets of Japanese literature; Poetry For Sale is also a kasen. A variety of covers were printed (of which the accompanying image is only one of a half dozen) on 100% recycled Bogus Art paper and bound in the Yamato style using handmade ribbons of Japanese silkscreened paper.
Dimensions, w7 x h8 inches (18 x21.3 cm).

Keith Kumasen Abbott and Pat Nolan have engaged in the practice of haikai no renga over a period of thirty years. They are founding members, along with Michael Sowl and Maureen Owen, of The Miner School of Haikai Poets. The Miner School’s haikai have been published in numerous magazine including Hanging Loose, Exquisite Corpse, Jack’s Magazine, Big Bridge, and Simply Haiku as well as limited edition chapbooks and broadsides from Empty Head Press, Bamboo Leaf Studio, and Tangram Press. Their kasen, All Ears, was included in Saints Of Hysteria, an anthology celebrating collaboration, from Soft Skull Press (2007).

One of the unique features of Miner School haikai is that it includes a running commentary by the authors on each of their own stanzas as well as a stab at their collaborators’ links. It functions in a way similar to commentary provided as a special features audio track on a DVD. In his introductory comment, Pat Nolan explains how the idea to write Poetry For Sale came about and how it would proceed:

I had been reading Earl Miner’s The Monkey’s Straw Raincoat for some clarification on an aspect of haikai and by chance reread his translation of the delightfully quirky haikai, Poetry Is What I Sell, written by Basho and Kikaku. Miner speculated that the haikai might have even been used as a prospectus to garner new students. I streamlined Miner’s version of the hokku and sent it off to my long time haikai partner Keith Kumasen Abbott with the idea of replicating the spirit of this haikai; he would be Basho and I would be Kikaku. After some initial confusion, we followed the sequence that Miner set out in his introduction to this oddly hilarious renga.

Haikai no renga is a form of renga (Japanese linked verse) practiced by Basho (1644-1694) and his disciples, one of whom was the above mentioned Kikaku (1661–1707). It consists of a 17 syllable verse and a 14 syllable verse provided in turn by the poets engaged in the collaboration. In linking verses, a 31 syllable poem is produced, the latter verse of which (the 17 or the 14 syllable) will go on to join the next in the sequence to form its own unique poem, and so on until the requisite number of stanzas has been achieved. Renga sequences can number into the hundreds. Basho favored the economy of 36 stanzas. Renku is diminutive for haikai no renga also known as haikai. The more renowned Japanese verse form, haiku, is derived from the practice of amassing numerous hokku to vie for the privilege of opening a moon-viewing- sake-sipping evening of friendly literary collaboration. Renga itself is derived from the courtly form of poetry exchanged by the aristocracy as exemplified in Murasaki’s 11^th Century The Tale Of Genji. The rules of the composition for renga and haikai no renga are complicated and arcane, but like those of chess or go can be captivating and stimulating.

For more on the intriguing subject of Japanese Linked Verse, see Earl Miner’s Japanese Linked Poetry (Princeton, 1979) and Hiroaki Sato’s One Hundred Frogs (Weatherhill, 1983). Also, the introductory essay to the kasen Bamboo Greeting, published in Simply Haiku (2008), further details some of the unconventional methods practiced by The Miner School of Haikai Poets.

A pdf facsimile of Poetry For Sale can be found here.

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Happy 2018

Now Available from

Nualláin House, Publishers

Purchase two or more titles and get free shipping anywhere in the US (see How To Order for details)

Also available through our partnership with Bamboo Leaf Studio Linoleum Block Prints from the Smoking Poets series

and the Faux Koan series by Pat Nolan

Order two or more prints get free shipping and receive a bonus broadside of the limited edition Dylan Thomas print accompanied by Pat Nolan’s Advice To A Young Poet Free!!

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20% Off on All Titles & Free Shipping* (offer good thru 12/31/15)

Nualláin House, Publishers Box 798 Monte Rio, CA 95462.

ON THE ROAD TO LAS CRUCES; Being A Novel Account of The Last Day In The Life of A Legendary Western Lawman by Pat Nolan

THE LAST RESORT A Lee Malone Adventure by Pat Nolan

HELLO LIFE Poems by Gail King

Your Name Here New Poems by Pat Nolan

Poetry For Sale Haikai no Renga (Linked Poetry)

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NOW AVAILABLE!!

Poetry For Sale

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From Nualláin House, Publishers OCTOBER 2015 Order Now & Get Free Shipping! (Offer Good Through October 15th)

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Coming Soon From

Nualláin House, Publishers

Fall of 2015

Poetry For Sale

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All Ears

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Poetry For Sale

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Purchase two or more titles
and get free shipping
anywhere in the US
(see How To Order for details)

Also available through our partnership with
Bamboo Leaf Studio
Linoleum Block Prints
from the Smoking Poets series

Order two or more prints
get free shipping
and receive a bonus broadside of
the limited edition
Dylan Thomas print accompanied by Pat Nolan’s
Advice To A Young Poet
Free!!

20% Off on All Titles & Free Shipping*
(offer good thru 12/31/15)

Nualláin House, Publishers
Box 798 Monte Rio, CA 95462.

ON THE ROAD TO LAS CRUCES; Being A Novel Account of The Last Day In The Life of A Legendary Western Lawman
by Pat Nolan

THE LAST RESORT
A Lee Malone Adventure
by Pat Nolan

HELLO LIFE
Poems by Gail King

Your Name Here
New Poems
by Pat Nolan

Poetry For Sale
Haikai no Renga (Linked Poetry)

From Nualláin House, Publishers
OCTOBER 2015
Order Now & Get Free Shipping!
(Offer Good Through October 15^th)